Beneficiaries are actors too.pdf - Southern Institute of Peace ...

In Rwanda for example, citizens could be compelled to participate
in abunzi due to their social situation of poverty, limited
education, powerlessness as well as lack of credible alternatives
for justice. In addition, the abunzi mediation is mandated by the
law. However, legalized mediation is not peculiar to Rwanda only;
other countries including the United States of America also
practise legalized mediation, which is often classified as a form of
Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR). However, state mandated
mediation distorts the entire manner in which proper mediation
is supposed to be experienced by actors. The government of
Rwanda has made it explicit in its laws on the abunzi that it
expects a mediation process from the abunzi members. In other
words, the culture of mediation is communicated by the law.
Crimes and disputes of a particular nature are by law required to
go to the abunzi for hearing before the primary courts can
deliberate on the issue. Although the state-backed legal
institutions of dispute resolution have filled a void in the justice
arena, it is also arguable that the government of Rwanda is
preoccupied with the creation of decentralized legal forums where
people can access justice. However, the mandatory nature of such
institutions makes the resultant reconciliation questionable.
Citizens are obligated to use the mediation approach, while they
are reminded of the punishment that will follow from the formal
courts should the mediation efforts fail. The abunzi system is an
apt demonstration of the tangled relationships between law,
power and justice and how these cumulatively impact on the lives
of ordinary Rwandans brought into contact with the state.
Given the foregoing, the abunzi are an illustrative demonstration
of the dual impact of state-initiated systems of restorative justice.
The abunzi system demonstrates a level of ambivalence when it
comes to pursuance of the restorative and retributive approaches
to justice. This is because the abunzi is a traditional system of
conflict resolution which was just transplanted into the formal
legal system, and is still expected to exhibit a conciliatory
approach. Although the Organic Law states that the abunzi are
supposed to use restorative approaches instead of the retributive
approach, the reality is such that this institution can also exhibit
adversarial tendencies. Participants in mediation process are
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